Cyborgs, the terminator is real after all...

The term Cyborg is now becoming more prevalent in everyday life. Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline were the first to use the term in 1960, when writing about self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. Since then, the dream of incorporating technology with our natural life form has gone wild, resulting in the birth of the Cyborg. Over the years there has been many films about cyborgs, mainly noticeable is the film "The Terminator "in which the computers turn against mankind. The question is, with the integration of technology with our body, will we lose the essence of being human and is that a bad thing? 

In today's world, we have started a journey of integration with technology. In the last two centuries, we have made epic advancements to improve aspects of our body. There have been some instruments already invented which you could class as cyborg technology.In the 19th century the first hearing aid was invented which consisted of a long pipe and horn, nothing as such cyborg about that. But, today, we now can have a small hearing aid which isn't even noticeable, implanted into our ear, using instruments to capture and filter them to our brain.We also now have gastric bands and pacemakers which can be inserted into our body. The pacemaker which regulates an irregular heart beat, has the disadvantage to be hacked remotely which could result in death. This is maybe a small insight in to the future of Cyborg technologies. 

Some of the inventions are fantastic and should keep evolving. For example, some soldiers in war inevitably get hurt by bombs and bullets resulting in a loss of limbs. Due to cyborg technology, they can now have replacement arms and legs etc to help them with daily life, and giving them some of their dignity back.
 But, what i think could be a major problem in the future, is the cyborg advancement in mental and brain capabilities.

Kevin Warwick is a Professor of Cybernetics who is all for electrical chips in the body and turning himself into a Cyborg. Along with many other scientists, they are trying to pave the way for memory enhancement and having the internet in your head among other things. The problem is, when pacemakers in today's world can get hacked, what does the future hold when we have a chip in our head. What happens when a tyrant in power wants to impose a dictatorship? Probably hack our brains by installing an electrical neuropath virus. I guess the scientists will have to invent a mean antivirus and firewall...
But what really worries me about Kevin Warwick's mentality is that he talks about how speech is meaningless when we could speak through chips in our head. If he applies that train of thought to speech which shows emotion and HUMANE bodily functions, then it probably won't be too long before they eradicate emotion and senses, because after all who wants to be a primitive organism.  Anyone fancy being a cold Cyberman?

Who are we to play God? Although saying this, we already have in so many other aspects of our life, we might as well carry on the horrible degrading path to non existence. 

The rise of interactivity

Everyday, the human population grows forever closer to computers. Interactivity has increased rapidly, especially since the boom in social networking sites. The way we execute actions and why we execute them is being changed at a rapid pace. A talking dog can now be watched on Youtube by millions in the matter of days because of the collective social actions that we all take together. Whether this is a good thing is unknown, many agree that this is a positive progression while others argue against some aspects.

On sites such as Facebook or Twitter, media is now passed around the world in a matter of seconds, but it is for the social collective to decide whether it has the chance to get widely spread. With buttons such as "like" and the tagging system on twitter e.g "#92Chrisc", we are now able to announce to everyone what we like  and  can  have a say  in what becomes  popular. The result  in the way the media operate has for ever changed  the way in which  humans  interact with  technology, in  some  respects we are manipulating what comes to  the forefront of culture and society by using these "like" buttons. This  is a great  tool for the citizen journalist,  who is now  able to influence  social thinking  and to also  distribute news articles amongst other things.    

Although saying this, there has been some speculation that sometimes the top ten trend has been manipulated as to not show what the company doesn't deem fit as showing. Which in turn shows that possibly, the trending system is not a truly free application which we always have influence over. For example, in the recent months there has been an global occupation in many of the major cities around the world, protesting the grips the banking system has on government and businesses. The new New York occupation like many around the world, has a media group which tweets throughout the day. This has then been re-tweeted globally for more than two months. Many people involved in the occupation believe that the company is suppressing the tag #OccupyWallStreet as it hasn't appeared in the top ten even though it has had a surprising amount of mentions. Full article available here. RT said "In March of 2011, Bloomberg news reported that JPMorgan Chase & Co., arguably the largest corporate bank in the world, “has invested in a fund that has bought about $400 million in Twitter Inc. shares." They also added "In the end, Twitter might be more than happy to help the US government overthrow undesirable regimes in other parts of the world. But when it comes to giving voice to those who have decided to challenge a system of corporate greed and income inequality at home, silence might ultimately figure better into their bottom line". If this is true,  the emerging online manipulation echoes tactics used by oppressive regimes in some countries such as China or Egypt. It suggests that the government is using interactivity to manipulate people's thinking processes.

The rise in interactivity has also enabled fans to be closer to there stars like never before. Many "celebrities" and politicians now have profiles on many of the social networking sites, which has created a new link and relationship that was not present before. It is now possible to get your "celebrity gossip"  from the horses mouth, cutting out the middle man such as OK magazine, allowing the audience to watch away at a "twitter war" between their favourite celebrities. Thus, creating a hyperbolic use of interactivity.
Politicians are also interacting with the public increasingly by using the Twitter system to voice there opinions and political stance on policy. This is a great advancement for civilians being able to interact with the government personally on some levels. It enables us as a population to get insight into individual political thought processes and opinions. In October MP's ruled that it would be fine for them to use electron devices for the purpose of tweeting whilst in the chamber although, earlier in the year, Parliamentary authorities tried to get the use of the devices band the guardian reports, saying it would disconnect them from the primary object of the chamber.

Overall, it would seem that we are heading towards a road full of interactivity. In a never ending evolving world, we need to weigh up the good and the bad and analyze the outcome and try to see what the future holds for the process. We need to also understand how  the true nature of online freedom interacts with online activity , because you may be doing something online "freely" but it might not necessarily be a free choice.